BINDING SOUL AND SOURCE
Prayers for the Church Street Family
January 20, 2021
Rev. Dr. Jan Buxton Wade
Blessed One, night tiptoes in softly across the fields and the city streets, altering both the landscape and the perspective of anyone wise enough to notice. Change is in the air, though in our weakness, we struggle against it. Observing the shaded clouds drifting by, we realize how stagnant our spirits have grown during this past year of pain and loss. We have all been injured in one way or another, and when we are bruised and broken, we cling to the familiar.
God of Wide Horizons, lift us up above our own personal interests, we pray, and spread our concerns wider than ourselves. Take away our complaining mantras and turn them into fresh, life-giving songs. And by your grace, lend us your courage, that we might step outside the predictable to discover the less-traveled byways, leading to new beginnings.
If this historic day has taught us anything, it is how expansive is our nation, how diverse are its people, how precious is our form of government, how complex are our challenges, and how vital is your holy guidance. As a mother blesses a son when he departs from home, as a father prays for a daughter to make the right choices, so do you, Loving Parent, long for us to make wise choices and you pray we will bless others as you have blessed us. Grant us courage to live out the promises we made in our hearts during today’s momentous Inaugural Ceremony, that we might become in truth “One Nation Under God.”
Accept these evening petitions, Faithful Father, and cover with your compassion each of these friends who lay their praises and their wounds at your feet:
- Gratitude: A hope-filled Inauguration Day
- One celebrates receiving a virus vaccination today
- Thanksgiving: Vaccinations arrive at a nursing facility
- Gratitude for our nation and a peaceful transition of power
- Grateful for prayers: Employer with asthma and Covid much improved
- Prayers for distraught mother and her son with addictions
- Healing of older sister, diagnosed today with Covid
- Upholding one with serious heart issues
- Protection and holy guidance for our President and Cabinet
- Prayers for outgoing President and team members
- Healing of nerve damage following surgery
- Prayers for young member suffering from Covid
- Widening of vaccine distributions
- Two young mothers in need of employment
- Recovery for cousin suffering effects of major stroke
- Healing for brother hospitalized (Covid)
- Strength and courage one facing chemo
- Shrinking of a pancreatic tumor
- Help for a sister, exhausted with caregiving
- Strength for one enduring chemo side effects
- Comfort for a member who is seriously ill
- Recovery for husband with Covid
There are times when we forget who we are and whose we are. But throughout the sleepy hours as we take our rest, you will assure us that we are your chosen ones who belong solely to you. Cover us and all whom we love with your mercy, that we might rise tomorrow to become the channels of blessings we have pledged to be. For Christ’s sake, we make our prayers:
Our Father who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread and forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil, for thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory forever. Amen.
